2 Stories: Husband and Wife Get Free of TBN Pentecostalist Prosperity Pimps

A couple gives their account of getting free of the Baptacostalist TBN crowd.  http://apprising.org/2012/03/26/falsified-word-faith-prosperity-gospel/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+apprising%2F2+%28Apprising+Ministries%29

Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Mar 26, 2012 in Current Issues, Features, Word Faith

For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. (Titus 1:10-11)

They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.
(Titus 1:16)

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 3-4)

[Vincent] TV preachers are very slick, and the majority of them are leading masses astray, supposedly using Scripture to back up their claims. Men and women are on national and worldwide television “preaching” that God wants everyone to always be healthy and wealthy therefore resulting in prosperity in all things, all the time. many of them teach that we are actually “little gods” because, after all, we were created in the image of God. Some actually going so far as to say that we are everything God is and was and will ever be.

Most of them claim to be able to physically heal people, cast out demons, make futuristic prophecies [most prophecies of which have never happened). Some claim to have taken trips to Heaven and back, receive direct and extra-Biblical revelations from God, and even supposedly had personal conversations with God. As the verses at the beginning of this chapter say, these "preachers" profess to know God, but deny Him by what they do.

They are deceivers who should not teach but do so for one reason and one reason alone. Money.

[My wife] Lori was duped by two of these false teachers, Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer. Two of the lesser recognized false teachers, especially amongst evangelical Christians. I went through a time where I was sick, nothing life threatening but was a season of life where illness did plague the body for the good part of a year. I fell into the trap of watching Joel Osteen every Tuesday night and reading his book. I bought into the lie of if I just quoted to myself that “I am a victor and not a victim” that I would start to overcome this illness eventually.

I would continually do self-affirmations that Joel was pumping at me from the television screen, all the while living in total rebellion to my Lord. I had no real understanding of God’s sovereignty and that possibly the reason I was sick was that it was the work of God in my life for a reason. That thought never crossed into my mind. I heard over and over that God doesn’t want us to be sick and miserable. but that He wants us to live a victorious life. Had I been in the word of God I would [have] quickly realized this wasn’t lining up with the life of the apostles at all and those men were hand picked by the Lord.

Their lives got worse as it wen ton, they were persecuted, they were homeless, poor, in prison, and yet they were blessed and cared for. These were the truths I needed to be rooted in, yet I wasn’t. I was busy letting a self-help guru on the screen tell me that I was going to feel better if I just believed enough. Where is there any valid Scripture that backs that up? There isn’t. We are not promised a good and easy life on this side of eternity, but we are promised in Matthew 28:20 that “lo I am with you always even to the end of the age.”

After the Lord eventually healed me over time, nothing that I did obviously, I turned to another false teacher unknowingly. This time not only was truth being twisted but it was from an authority who was not even fit to be teaching, Joyce Meyer. [W]omen [should not be] acting as pastors as defined in 1 Timothy 3:2 [and] are not to be exercising the authority of that role. Titus 1:6 states clearly the qualifications of a pastor, see below the text and how a woman cannot fit into this criteria for the office of pastor:

“namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion.”

[Lori] I used to watch Joyce Meyer every morning before I was saved and [fed] on her quick wit and sassy style. I used to think, “she’s just telling it like it is!” I remember thinking her “sermons” on the battle in your mind were just phenomenal. She was telling me how to just get over it and move on. It was a much starker difference than Joel. Joel was happy and feel good. Joyce was no-nonsense no frills just cut to the core motivation. She was teaching a false gospel of the little gods lesson as Vince mentioned above.

I had emailed asking for prayer during that time and not but a few weeks later did I get things in the mail from her ministry basically forcing an “offering” and that in order to continue being blessed, I needed to return money in the envelope that was sent. That happened repeatedly until I moved from that address. Many women who love that strong willed nature in a female buy into Joyce Meyer and all that she is selling. That is not the character of a godly woman,… Vince never really had any interest in most of the TV preachers. I never watched much TV anyway.
I did watch some of the more minor, non-heretical, not as popular teachers, but I never got into Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Jesse Duplantis, or any of the other heretics on TV. However, before God graciously saved me, I could have watched them and probably not have given much thought to it. I probably would have thought some of it was strange…but heresy? I didn’t even know the word “heresy” existed until a couple of years ago. I surely did not know how deep and dark their teaching really goes, and how especially evil these men and women are. Justin Peters and his ministry [Justin Peters Ministries] really opened my eyes to most of that.

This movement is not only dangerous to the souls of many who are being falsely converted, but who are also being led in universal communions. We were witness to this concept at a Benny Hinn Crusade in Dallas, Texas in September. People were coming down the aisle in droves to get saved and were led in a universalistic communion. They were not told to examine themselves in light of Scripture in the biblical sense; it was completely twisted into believing that if you took the sacraments it would heal you from within. Dangerous beyond words.

There was a two-fold problem with this event, turning out false converts and then in the next minute leading them into communion that was not understood in the purest sense. This movement is sweeping the nation and the world and the people are so hungry for “something more” in their lives, they buy into this culture of health, wealth, and even fame for the exchange of all that they have. Among those already listed, a few of the more well known television preachers supporting this movement are as follows: Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo Dollar, T.D. Jakes, Paula White, Jessie Duplantis and several others.[1]

Vincent and Lori Williams www.vinceandloriministries.blogspot.com

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End notes:
[1] Vincent and Lori Williams, Falsified: The Danger Of False Conversion [Bloomington: WestBow Press, 2012], 36, 37, 38, 39.
See also:
T.D. JAKES SPEAKER THIS MONTH FOR PAULA WHITE’S A GOD ENCOUNTER
EMERGING ECUMENICAL EVANGELEPHANTS AND THE WORD FAITH MOVEMENT
SBC PASTOR ED YOUNG, JR PAYS HOMAGE TO JOEL OSTEEN